Asia and Australasia by John Douglas

The Nineteenth Century, July 1902, pp. 43-54

ASIA AND AUSTRALASIA by John Douglas+

The Australian Commonwealth has a number of knotty questions to solve—one of not the least difficult is that of the settlement and civilisation of Northern Australia.

On the one hand we have Australasia, including New Zealand, with some four millions of inhabitants, chiefly living in what may be called sub-tropical Australia; then we have a wide belt, practically the unoccupied space of Tropical Australia; and then, beyond that, there is Asia with its countless millions—Netherlands India, with its thirty millions; the Malay States, British India, the Philippines, China, and Japan, with all their multitudinous millions, seething and effervescing as it were under the leavening influence of Western civilisation. And when Asia and Australasia come into closer contact what is going to happen? Is Tropical Australia to be influenced by its climatic conditions and its propinquity to Asia, or is it to be inhabited and influenced by the people of Australia?

Northern Australia, north of the Tropic of Capricorn, is a vast, sparsely peopled country whose inhabitants, according to Mr. Fenton (the Commonwealth Statist), are estimated at about 170,000 souls—though he admits that his data for this estimate are at present incomplete.

It may be interesting, however, to record the details with which I have been supplied by him. According to these the total white and coloured population in Tropical Australia is 170,930, apportioned as follows:

	Queensland	South Australia	West Australia
White	145,170	1,561	2,970
Coloured	16,700	2,830	1,700
	161,870	4,390	4,670

I am myself inclined to think that Mr. Fenton’s estimate of the aboriginal population is too low, and that 30,000 or even 50,000 might be added to the 170,930 souls above mentioned.

Though not populous, therefore, this vast area is undoubtedly rich in latent wealth. It is a great mineral country—there can be no doubt of that: scientific observations and practical prospecting both point to that conclusion. Its pastoral capabilities are also great without estimating the arid wastes of the country four or five hundred miles from the coast. There are portions, also, of the seaboard which may be regarded as agricultural, and richly endowed with a prolific soil, though these are limited, as compared with the deserts which intersect it.

Such is the Tropical Australia about which I propose to say something here, especially of that portion of it in Northern Queensland, in the Torres Strait, and in New Guinea, where I have spent a good many years of my life within the tropics.

When I first knew Australia, in 1851, there was no Tropical Australia—no Tropical Australia inhabited by Europeans. Brisbane was the furthest Northern settlement and Moreton Bay was emerging from the era of transportation. But then gold had been discovered near Bathurst and all the world of Sydney was off to the goldfields.

Being in those days an ingenuous new chum of three-and-twenty, I went straight for the goldfields, and on my way thither I made the acquaintance of a rather remarkable historical personage. He was sitting at the head of a long table at Bathurst, where a number of travellers had met to dine, and he was holding forth in rather a dominant tone on the desperate prospects of a country given up to gold-digging. What would become of the great pastoral interests of the country? The shepherds would all desert their flocks, and the sheep would become the prey of the dingoes. The gentleman I speak of had a florid face and a resonant, commanding voice. The country in very truth, said he, would go to the dogs.

As a stranger I ventured to remark that there was another way to look at the question, and that the goldfields might attract a most enterprising population from the Old Country, and after all, if the worst came to the worst, the sheep would look after themselves for a time. Then someone else intervened, and ejaculated, ‘Chinese—we will send for Chinese.’ At this the gentleman of the florid face and the resonant voice became still more florid and still more resonant.

He apostrophised the suggested Chinamen, and then and there they were consigned to a place supposed to be even hotter than the hottest portion of Australia. The gentleman whom I had thus rather incautiously roused was, as I subsequently ascertained, the celebrated William Charles Wentworth, the ideal patriot and legislator of New South Wales. Nevertheless, the Chinamen were sent for; the Chinamen came; and for some years many of them tended the sheep of Australia in which Mr. Wentworth was so interested.

I myself had a good deal of experience of them and found that some of them made very good shepherds, for that was in the days when the country was not fenced in, and when a shepherd who could fatten a flock well for the pots was worth 1l. a week.

Australia was indeed willing to accept the services of Asia for some years, while everybody was busy at the goldfields.

At a somewhat later period I was in Northern Australia—what was then Northern Australia—in the vicinity of Brisbane. There was an agitation for separation. We were languishing for want of men—men and women to do the work of the splendid country which had been discovered. If we could not get enough immigrants from the Old Country, we should have to get coolies from India; and even Dr. Lang, the great agitator and advocate of British immigration, admitted that we might have coolies from India, seeing that Moreton Bay was a semi-tropical country, and coolies might help us to grow cotton for Manchester.

Coolies, at any rate, were better than convicts, which seemed to be the alternative, for the squatters began to talk of the resumption of transportation. But neither coolies nor convicts came. Separation was accomplished, and with separation came the land order system and British immigrants. There was a grand transformation scene, and Queensland came to the front as one of the leading colonies of Australia. Then, under the governorship of Sir George Bowen, there set in a period of great northern expansion. New townships were formed on the Northern seaboard. Rockhampton, Mackay, Bowen, and Townsville, Cardwell, Cairns, and Cooktown sprang into existence as if by magic.

All these places, one after the other, were founded and prospered. Still no coolies—only the poor English and Irish and Scotch and German immigrants, who got sadly bitten by mosquitoes when they first arrived, but who pushed out not only northwards, but westwards, right through from end to end of the country. It was amazing and unprecedented, but it was indisputable. At this time sugar and cotton were beginning to be grown, but sugar, as people said in those days, could not be grown without coolies. If we could not get coolies from India, we might get coolies possibly from Java—so thought the sugar-planters—or perhaps we might learn how to grow sugar from the Dutch in Java; and so it came about that a kind of embassy was sent to Batavia, and an agreement—which lasted only a short time—was made with our Dutch neighbours to run steamers through Torres Strait round Cape York, where Somerset had already been established. I happened then to be Postmaster-General in Sir George Bowen’s Government, and the first contract for a steam-service through Torres Strait was signed by me; but it did not last long, and it was found better for us to go to Singapore than to Batavia.

Ultimately the British Indian Company took the mail contract, and with it came an agreement under which immigrants were brought out by way of the Red Sea. It was considered an experiment at the time, but it proved a great success. It was clearly demonstrated that immigrants could be brought out by steamships through the Red Sea with less mortality and greater comfort than they could be by the Cape in sailing ships. Thenceforth Torres Strait became the recognised highway for British immigrants to our northern settlements, and the fertilising stream continued to contribute to their surprising growth.

All this time coolies from India had been talked about. Bills had been introduced into Parliament, negotiations had taken place with the Indian Government, but nothing came of it all. No Government would face the responsibility of introducing them, and finally Sir Thomas McIlwraith abandoned the idea altogether, and promised his constituents never again to advocate it. Nothing could be more explicit than his statements in this respect.

Meanwhile, however, the cry for coolies had been to a great extent met by the introduction of South Sea Islanders, who were found to be most useful auxiliaries in the plantations right along the coast from the Logan to Cairns and Port Douglas. In spite of the abominable iniquities connected with the introduction of Pacific Islanders in the early days of its inception, when the enormities of the slave trade were reproduced with variations which only feebly differentiated it from its African prototype—in spite, I say, of this—it was licked into a kind of shape which made it in a sort of way tolerable.

And at last, this island traffic was coddled into existence as a substitute for the coolies whose introduction had been abandoned, and there is no doubt that the Islanders proved most helpful, though their employment led to much difference of opinion among ourselves. The cry for Indian coolies died out, partly because the politicians found it necessary to abandon it, and partly because the amiable and adaptable South Sea Islander had proved an excellent and most suitable substitute. But all this time a considerable voluntary immigration of another kind of Asiatic coolie had set in: the Chinaman once more put in his appearance, attracted to the northern and eastern shores of Australia by the discovery of gold, and chiefly by the discovery of gold at Thornborough and the Palmer Rivers.

Now, we Australians have never been in love with the Chinaman, and in that respect we were of the same mind as Mr. Wentworth, the gentleman of the resonant voice of whom I have spoken. John Chinaman nevertheless was coming to us in larger numbers than we liked. He was helping himself to our gold, and he was costing us money in the additional police which had to be employed to look after him. What could we do? Well, we brought in Bills and passed them through Parliament; we proposed that each Chinaman should pay 10l. on landing, which amount was to be returned to him when he left us, provided that in the meantime he had not cost us anything as an inmate of our gaols or hospitals. The Colonial Secretary, however, at that time would have none of our Chinese Bills, and Her Majesty’s assent was withheld from them. Still the Chinamen came—not by hundreds, but by thousands: shiploads were arriving every day. Already there were 30,000 on the Palmer River and at that rate Northern Queensland would soon have become a Chinese dependency of the British Empire. It was an anxious time for us all, and especially for me, for I happened at the time to be at the head of the Ministry. As good luck would have it, however, a comparatively trifling incident supplied us with a solution of the difficulty. A vessel arrived from Hong-Kong with a case of smallpox on board. She was placed in quarantine, and an executive minute was passed which required that all ships coming from China should perform quarantine.

The expedient we had recourse to proved effective. In a short time 4,000 Chinamen were performing quarantine on FitzRoy Island, off Cape Grafton; and our new Governor, Sir Arthur Kennedy, also happening to arrive at the same time, had to go into quarantine at Moreton Bay. This quarantine expedient settled the whole question. Shippers no longer found it profitable to book Chinese passengers to Queensland; and the Colonial Office, seeing that we were in earnest, assented to the much more drastic legislation which was ultimately adopted throughout Australia.

The incident I refer to happened in 1876, and since then I think I may say that no large number of Chinamen have come to remain in Australia. I should add, however, that the Chinamen who came to the Palmer Diggings got a good deal of alluvial gold on the Palmer. Many of them—most of those who got gold—returned to China, and those who did not got distributed over the country—many of them being employed in clearing the scrub lands on the coast, which were afterwards transformed into sugar-plantations. A few years after the time I speak of I severed my connection with Queensland politics, and since then I have lived chiefly at Thursday Island and in British New Guinea.

I now come to the more special subject of this paper, and shall endeavour first to sketch briefly the history of the settlement at Thursday Island as one of the connecting links between Asia and Australasia, and the centre of our pearl-shell fishery in Torres Strait. And then I shall have something more to add in reference to the present relations of Asia and Australasia in connection with the recent Commonwealth legislation on alien immigration.

First, then, as to the inception of the pearl-shell fishery. It commenced in 1869 at Somerset. Hither came some adventurous mariners from Sydney with scratch crews consisting chiefly of South Sea Islanders. The Wappa or Warrior reef was the first scene of their search, and the method was that of what we call swimming diving—that is, of diving without the aid of any apparatus. The shell was very abundant, and was readily brought to the surface by the expert swimming natives in waters which did not exceed twenty feet in depth. The few boats which were then engaged in the fishery were soon filled to the brim, and though the price realised at first did not reach 100l. a ton, it was so easily obtained at but small outlay that it paid remarkably well. Then, when the shell reached the London market prices rose till they reached 250l. a ton. Herein, then, there was manifestly a new discovery which attracted marked attention. More boats and more extended prospecting resulted in increased proportion. The Ormond reefs proved most productive, and the shallow channels round the Prince of Wales Islands were exceptionally rich.

Some fortunes were very quickly made by swimming diving, and a good many precious pearls found their way to Sydney as the illicit perquisites of the South Sea Island divers, who generally managed to appropriate them. Indeed, so handsome were the profits realised from the shell itself that the boat-owners began to regard the possession of the pearls obtained as a secondary consideration altogether. Besides, if a diver happened to find a good pearl in the shell which he opened and handled, how was the master to know anything about it? Many a diver, accordingly, after a successful season in Torres Strait, could afford to spend a high time of it in Sydney for many weeks. Thus it came about that a good deal of attention was attracted to this profitable pursuit.

Boats were fitted out with diving apparatus, and white men began to think that it might be worth their while to learn how to dive in the diving dress. Under such conditions as then prevailed there was little or no risk, and with ordinary care diving for pearl shell might be quite as profitable as gold-digging. Meanwhile more boats made their appearance. But it was not so easy to supply the crews. The local source of supply was exhausted. The shallow waters had been pretty well picked over, and in them the shell was less abundant: the deeper waters must be tried, and for them more men were wanted. And thus it came about that Malays and Manila men were recruited. The steamers then plying between Brisbane and Singapore proved to be convenient vehicles for the introduction of these men, and the men turned out on the whole to be very suitable for the work. There were no divers among them at first, but they soon learned to work in the diving dress, and some of them proved to be excellent divers. As time went on, it was found that Somerset was not a very suitable centre for the industry. The Prince of Wales Islands were resorted to by the shellers. Albany Pass proved to be a somewhat dangerous anchorage: the tides were too strong. The channels round Thursday Island were found to be safer and more secure, and so it came about that the settlement was moved from Somerset to Thursday Island. In the little bays and sheltered anchorages which abound in that locality the shellers had already begun to form head stations, where they lived themselves, and whence they despatched their boats to the neighbouring fishing grounds. A sheller’s fleet might consist of ten or fifteen or perhaps even twenty luggers. These he would fit out at his head station, and send them to sea for a month or six weeks; and at the end of that time they would return with the shell they had obtained, when they remained in port for a few days, and then went out again to the fishing ground with a fresh supply of provisions.

This system worked fairly well for some years when shell was plentiful and divers were not too knowing. The pearls, it is true, all went to the divers as their perquisite, and this was almost recognised by the masters, who sometimes bought their own pearls at a good round discount; but a time came when it became necessary to sail closer to the wind in order to earn profits on the increased capital which was being put into the industry, and so it came about that attendant schooners were sent to sea with the small fleets of luggers. These were called ‘floating stations,’ and thus the owners were able to control their men more effectively, and when the luggers required provisions they had recourse to the mother schooners, or floating stations, from which they could obtain anything they required. This saved much time—the time which used to be spent in port—and it also put an end to the convenient appropriation of pearls by the divers. All shell had to be brought to the ‘mother schooner’ before it was opened, and thus the pearls were arrested before they reached the pockets of the divers. Everything which used to be done on land was now done at sea: the shell was collected, opened, cleaned, packed, and branded all ready for shipment. The ‘mother schooners,’ again, were waited on by tenders which brought them stores and took the packed shell into port. In this way the shelling fleet could remain out on the fishing ground for a long time, and the Thursday Island people who used to nurse the boats when they came into port grumbled greatly at the new system, which scarcely gave them a chance of existence.

Such are the conditions on which this industry is now carried on. There are 247 boats using diving apparatus, and there are nine ‘mother schooners.’ These boats and these schooners represent a considerable amount of capital, a large proportion of which is owned in Brisbane; and besides these there are 114 boats locally owned, which are chiefly engaged in the old primitive system of swimming, diving, or in the preparation of bêche-de-mer. Altogether there are now some 361 boats under licence from the Queensland Government, manned almost exclusively by coloured men who are mostly Asiatics. I have said that at first the shellers, finding that it was impossible to get sufficient white men who would ship in their boats, had recourse to Malays and Manila men, both of whom were found suitable for the purpose.

Then came the Japanese, who appeared to be not only suitable as employees, but who very soon showed that they could not only work for others, but that they could work for themselves. They bought and built boats, and fitted them out, obtaining licences, and winning for themselves a position and a standing which could not be questioned. Would they appropriate the industry? It looked very like it. In numbers they were rapidly increasing, and in co-operative capacity they proved more than a match for the Europeans or the Manila men. Then it was discovered that the Asiatic Japanese is an alien, and it was scarcely to be expected that we could license aliens to take our profitable pearl shell from our territorial waters. And thus it came about that the licensing of boats, which up to that time had been unlimited, was thenceforth restricted to British subjects. It was our undoubted right to put this limitation in force, and it was absolutely necessary, for without it there can be no doubt that the industry would very soon have passed into the hands of the Japanese, just as the northern goldfields would have passed into the hands of the Chinese if we had not found the means of preventing it. And it was necessary not only to restrict the issue of licences to British subjects, but it was also necessary to check what threatened to be a small invasion of Japanese who were arriving not only for employment in the pearl-shell fisheries, but also on the sugar-plantations; and this, fortunately, was easily accomplished by correspondence between the two Governments—for it must be said to the credit of the Japanese Government that they have shown themselves to be most reasonable and considerate in their negotiations with us. It was arranged, accordingly, that immigrant Japanese should be furnished with passports, and that no passports should be issued except on authority from the Queensland Government.

It was thus found possible to adjust the supply to the demand, and to limit it altogether to a standard number to be agreed on. So the matter stands at the present time—or, rather, perhaps I should say stood, until the late legislation of the Commonwealth Parliament, under which the arrangements made by the Queensland Government are partially abrogated, and the treaty engagements entered into have been ignored. I will quote a few figures from the latest authorities at my command. At Thursday Island, which is the centre of action, lying about twenty miles from the mainland of Australia, we have a population of 1,695 souls, the different nationalities being thus apportioned:

Nationality	Number	Nationality	Number
Europeans	705	Pacific Islanders	81
Japanese	304	Cingalese	54
Aboriginals	113	Hindoos	22
Chinese	114	New Guinea natives	29
Philippinos	83	Javanese	7
Malays	55	Other mixed races	128

Thus Europeans still head the list.

Now, I, who am, as I fain to confess, a white Australian in everything which is essential for the existence of a white Australia, am not ashamed of these figures. I should like, it is true, to see a larger proportion of Europeans, and there is no reason to believe that such might not be brought about. But here, in this little community, we have all the essentials which may be regarded as appertaining to a white Australia: we have the same all-pervading British law, applicable to Asian and Australian alike, the same English language, and the same forms of social intercourse which prevail in Southern Australia; our churches and schools are an exact counterpart on a small scale of what they are in Melbourne or in Brisbane.

Passing now to the maritime population, let us see in what proportion the different nationalities are represented:

Nationality	Number	Nationality	Number
Europeans	65	Rotumah men	79
Japanese	619	Samoans	27
Philippinos	237	Aboriginals of Australia	171
Malays	217	Papuans	27
Torres Strait Islanders	279	Miscellaneous	69
Pacific Islanders	242

—making a total of men shipped and employed as crews in the pearl-shell and bêche-de-mer industries of 2,032, and these of course are all single men. Among the Asiatic contingent resident on Thursday Island there are forty-three Japanese women, of whom a few are respectable married women; the rest we may classify as not very respectable, though in their special avocation they are orderly and well behaved.

Of the Philippinos also a few are married women, for it is the custom of the Manila man, when he is sufficiently well off, to order a wife from the conventual schools at Macao. In addition to these there are a few aboriginal women who are married, chiefly to Manila men; and of European women there are 180, with 249 children, who show no special signs of degeneracy from the old stock. Such is a closely approximate statement of our population at Thursday Island.

Here certainly Asia has the best of it, and herein, as I believe, Asia will continue to have the best of it. I scarcely see how it can be that the Asiatic should not outnumber the European; you might prohibit or place difficulties in the employment of Asiatics or of aliens to-morrow—as, indeed, the Commonwealth Parliament has done, or perhaps I should say threatens to do—but whom could you find to take their place? The white man will not ship at 2l. or at 3l. a month, even if he is furnished with everything which he can expect to be supplied with at sea. It may be quite true the occupation is a perfectly healthy one, and that the risks to be encountered are infinitesimally small as compared with the rigours and dangers of our fisher-folk in the north seas. The white men are not to be had who will man the pearling luggers, nor are there white divers who will work with coloured crews. I scarcely know why white men are not attracted by the rich rewards of a diver’s calling, but such is undoubtedly the case.

They are not in the field. There are some who say they will soon come to the front if we give them a chance by shutting out the Asiatic competitor.

Meanwhile the Asiatic, with his employer, the owner of the floating stations and ‘mother schooners,’ is in possession of the field, and it is hardly likely, as it seems to me, that he will be dispossessed. But a new aspect also will come over the whole question by the passing of the Commonwealth restriction legislation. Under that legislation how can the Asiatic find a footing?

To that the pearl sheller, with his floating station and his ‘mother-schooner,’ replies, ‘Nevertheless we shall live. You may drive us from your territorial waters, but we shall find a field for our industry outside your limits on the high seas.’ And there is certainly some prospect that recourse may be had to such an expedient.

The Dutch have lately opened a settlement in Dutch New Guinea, not more than one hundred miles from our western boundary. They are holding out inducements to our pearl shellers to go there, and the pearl shellers say, ‘Why should we not, if we can get better terms for our Asiatic crews? What is to prevent us doing so? We can even fish, just as we have done, on our old fishing ground, and you cannot touch us so long as we keep out of your territorial waters.’ There is no doubt a good deal in this, and it remains to be seen how it will work out. The probability is that the Commonwealth will come to some compromise, by which the pearl-shell fisheries, both on the northern and north-western shores of Australia, will be regarded as maritime industries differentiated in some respects from the question of alien or Asiatic labour as applied to the mainland. There is, I think, a real difference which will have to be recognised.

I have endeavoured to describe the position as regards the Asiatic alien as applied to Thursday Island. At Port Darwin and in Western Australia the same principles and the same practices hold good. In the Northern Territory there are not many Malays or Japanese, though there are a good many Chinese—some 2,567, according to the last returns. In Western Australia their pearl-shelling fleets are recruited from Java and Singapore. There, too, it is a limited maritime enterprise which is not likely to be seriously interfered with by the new legislation. Before I leave this branch of my subject, however, I will mention what the Queensland Government have lately done in connection with the pearl-shell fishery in Torres Strait.

They have made pretty extensive water reserves in the neighbourhood of Thursday Island, and they have instructed their officers not to issue any new licences.

Both these provisions have, of course, had the effect of considerably limiting the operations of those engaged in the industry. They have a tendency, also, in the direction of creating a monopoly as regards the present holders of licences. I must confess that they do not very much commend themselves to my judgment. Here is an industry which during the thirty-three years it has been in existence has resulted in the production of shell, bêche-de-mer, and tortoiseshell which has realised, according to my estimate, something like 5,000,000l. in the London and Eastern markets. Can nothing better be done for it than to impose all those restrictions with the intention, as it is said, of saving it from impending destruction? The specific cure for the malady, it seems to me, would be to persevere in the excellent endeavours which have already been made to ascertain the best methods of cultivating the shell among the reefs and breeding channels where at one time it was so abundant. This will certainly be accomplished someday, and the sooner the better, even if it costs a large sum of money by way of experiment. The Government, indeed, got as far as the appointment of a scientific expert for this purpose, but there the matter has ended in the meantime—ad futurum tempus relegatum est, like many of our grand schemes, and we must wait for some other solution of the great Asiatic question in connection with Torres Strait. According to my reading of the signs of the times, this question of Asia and Australia is one of the great questions of the present and of the future for Australia. I am quite as conscious as many other people are that the vast area of Northern Australia cannot be peopled by Europeans alone, as the shores of Southern Australia are peopled, yet I am perfectly satisfied that the people of the southern States of Australia will do their level best to maintain the integrity of their present institutions, and the existence of what is called a ‘white Australia.’ It is not a question of the labour party alone, as some people think: it is the conviction and determination, as I believe, of nine-tenths of the present people of Australia. It is vain to say that the forces of Nature are against us: ‘Dii me terrent et Jupiter hostis.’ It is not the first time we have fought with the forces of Nature—and even if it comes to the worst, we must have time to learn our lessons.

The Commonwealth of Australia has already undertaken the white man’s burden in accepting the responsibilities of the government of New Guinea. That is no light matter. It almost follows that it will have to undertake the responsibility of governing the Northern Territory of both South and Western Australia. It will have to make railways both to Western Australia and to North Australia, and then, but not till then, the difficulties and responsibilities of providing for the government of the northern Tropical States of Australia will begin to be realised. May I presume to add that, in the meantime, I am certain that the people of England will be patient with us? We shall have a number of most difficult problems to solve, and we cannot solve them all at once. The shaping of our own destiny has been confided to us, and I do not doubt that we shall be led on step by step to make a proper use of the great privileges which we inherit from those who have gone before us.

It must always be remembered that sub-tropical Australia, the Australia of the southern Australian States—of Southern Queensland, of New South Wales and Victoria—will never consent, come what may, if I am any judge of public opinion, to the systematic introduction of coloured labour into northern Australia. They value their inheritance too highly to justify any such expectation. It may be pride, it may be prejudice, but I believe it is a passionate conviction with the present inhabitants of Australia that the unexplored and uninhabited portions of their country shall be reserved for their own use, even though they are included in the zone of the Tropics; and when I say their own use I mean, of course, that they would desire that such territory should be occupied as Australia has hitherto been occupied—by men and women of their own kith and kin—and that the introduction of Eastern races must be subject to such limitations as they may please to impose.